Deeplinks Blog posts about Digital Video

In the absence of NBC or Microsoft coming clean about what they've done -
what flags NBC sent, and what flags Microsoft obeys, we've been doing some detective
work of our own -- and we'd like your help.

NBC have already said that their activation of their copy-control system was
a "mistake". But when the next mistake occurs is the best chance to uncover what
copy-protection Vista obeys on digital, over-the-air TV.

We're looking to obtain raw data dumps of the ATSC stream next time your
copy of Vista chokes on an over-the-air digital TV feed.

While its customers are still puzzling over why Vista Media Center
is suddenly refusing to record over-the-air NBC digital TV, Microsoft has come out
with an astounding admission, courtesy of Greg Sandoval at CNet News:

"Microsoft included technologies in Windows based on rules set forth by the (Federal Communications Commission)," a Microsoft spokeswoman wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. "As part of these regulations, Windows Media Center fully adheres to the flags used by broadcasters and content owners to determine how their content is distributed and consumed."

After further investigation of reports of Vista refusing to record NBC, we have found at least one case where a user receiving digital TV over-the-air has been blocked from recording TV shows. Justin Sanders, who took this screenshot, says he was recording Raleigh's HDTV channel WNCN-DT1 on his Vista machine when a popup stating that "restrictions set by the broadcaster ... prohibit recording of this program" appeared.

This is significant: this is the first case we've heard of equipment voluntarily obeying broadcast flag-like restrictions on TV content digitally broadcast over-the-air.

We're still investigating whether these involved over-the-air digital TV, which would mean that NBC was the first broadcaster to attempt to revive the abandoned ATSC "broadcast flag" (as opposed to cable and analog copy control signals like CGMS-A which have been used before).

The immense popularity of sites like YouTube has unexpectedly turned Flash Video (FLV) into one of the de facto standards for Internet video. The proliferation of sites using FLV has been a boon for remix culture, as creators made their own versions of posted videos. And thus far there has been no widespread DRM standard for Flash or Flash Video formats; indeed, most sites that use these formats simply serve standalone, unencrypted files via ordinary web servers.